Break
by Black Cheshire
Summary: Ikuto left. He left for 3 years. He's back now, but what if Amu's not Amu anymore? Shes become a shell of a human. She threw weakness and humanity to the rubble along with emotion. Can Ikuto fight her dark charas and repair her hearts egg? Lemon chapt. 11
1. Chapter 1: Filthy Halo

Ikuto pov

I stepped off the train, serenity radiation from the atmosphere in my hometown, a place I hadn't been to in 3 years. I was mostly excited about seeing _Her_ again. I counted up the years. She was 15 now and I was 19. The age difference seemed smaller now. I smiled. I had missed this place.

I had found my father, whose tour was coming here next week. He'd been looking for me as well. I told him I'd like to live here permanently, and he'd promised we'd keep in touch.

I walked down the street, realizing to my dismay that it was only 12:30 and _She_ was still in class. Sighing heavily, I started walking to where I'd played my violin in high school. As I approached the walkway leading to the park, however, I heard a faint sound. I listened closer and made it out to be a female singing, but I couldn't hear the words. Interested, I snuck behind a tree a few dozen meters from the gazebo-like structure in the park. The voice was clear and harmonic now. Almost hypnotic.

(The Bird and the Worm by The Used)

"He wears his heart safety pinned to his backpack,

his backpack is all that he knows.

Shot down by strangers whose glances can cripple,

The heart and devour the soul…"

It was a beautiful yet very sad song. I couldn't see the girl singing, so I climbed the tree I was hiding behind stealthily to catch a glimpse. The girl continued to sing as I peered at the figure sprawled out on the floor of the gazebo. Her long pink hair, pooled around her head like a humongous halo, reminded me very much of _Hers._ It was even the same shade. Her eyes were shut but I wondered absentmindedly if they were gold. I then noticed the tips of her hair were a dark red. Blood. It lay in puddles and tracks all around her. Her wrists were cut. When I stretched my neck out and chara changed with Yoru I could just see that there was a bleeding heart carved into one wrist, a spade on the other. Strange… I scanned for another source of blood because surely, there was no way those cuts could bleed in rivers like that. Sure enough there was a clover carved into one ankle and a diamond in the other. As if on cue, she opened her eyes, still singing. It was _Her._

"Amu?"


	2. Chapter 2: Void

Ikuto pov

"Amu, what the hell are you doing?" I screamed, snatching up her bloody wrists from the raised floor. I remembered her eyes to be a breathtaking gold, with endless depth and happiness… but what I saw was… I didn't know what I saw. There was just _nothing there._ Her eyes were flat. Stripped of emotion, and any other kind of feeling. They seemed to hold the same hue, somehow, but instead of being kind and familiar… the color… was cold.

Tearing my eyes painfully from her… black holes, I used my coat to apply pressure to her wrists first, seeing as they were bleeding the most.

"Don't." Her voice was as her eyes, a void of anything and everything she was before. The one word made me want to cry. It was as if someone had taken Amu- my bubbly, happy-go-lucky, Amu, and scraped her down until she was the flat _nothing_ that was before me.

I didn't heed her ludicrous demand and continued mopping up her blood with my jacket using one hand, and patting my pockets in hope for my cell phone with the other. I cursed; I had left it on the train. Well, it looked like we were walking to the hospital then.

"I said don't." A hand clamped around the wrist holding the cloth to her skin… hard. So hard, in fact that I screamed out, which was very unlike me.

I struggled in her grasp, but her grip was strangely like steel. It wasn't how I remembered Amu, seeing as I'd always have to save her.

"Is this because of me…? If so… I'm sorry, Amu." I had to know. Did my leaving cause this somehow? This… complete 180? It would kill me if that were the case, but I would take responsibility.

Her long bloody pink locks fell in her eyes, and I saw the first of her emotions since arriving. A sick twisted smirk contorted her features.

"Save your pity. I'm exactly who I want to be, _Ikuto_." A shiver ran down my spine at how she'd said my name. It was a cruel chuckle filled with malicious hate. She rose swiftly and suddenly, dashing off into the midday sun, leaving behind only her bruising fingerprints on my arm.

"Amu…" I whispered sadly. But she wasn't Amu, that-that… that _thing_ wasn't my bumbling hot-headed little pinkette. Hell no, she was just her _temporary replacement_, because I would be getting _my _Amu- the _real_ Amu back, soon. Just you watch.


	3. Chapter 3: X

Ikuto pov

After cleaning up Amu's plentiful puddles of blood, I wandered idly in search of another place to play my violin. There were a few places that had nice acoustics but they were all too overpopulated for my tastes. Finally, I came across a fountain hidden in an abandoned work zone at the outskirts of town. I played a few notes, and they ricocheted off the crumbling stone perfectly, even better than the park.

I raised my bow to the taut strings and ran it across. Perfect. Violin was my own personal method to forgive and forget. I would lose myself somewhere in the crescendo and everything would just drift away. I wouldn't even pay attention to the notes, just the song. It must've been living hell for my father when he was teaching me to play. I remembered when he'd tried to get me to play a scale and I'd claimed I couldn't do it because it needed rhythm. I still don't know my scales to this day.

After playing Tsukiyo no Violinist forwards and backwards several times, I glanced at my watch to see that it was already 3 pm. If I wasn't going to see Amu again _today_ I'd definitely see everyone else.

I packed up my violin in its white case and swung it over my shoulder as I climbed through the rubble of a crumbling stone wall.

"What happened to Amu ~nya?" Leave it to Yoru to be so freaking inconsiderate. I'd spent at least an hour trying to forget what happened to Amu_ ~nya_.

"Fuck off."I flicked him in the nose, earning a considerably large _'NYYYYAAAAA!'._

"Ikuto-nii-san!" I groaned inwardly. Tadase was _very far down _my list of people to see on the day of arrival. I mean _really. _What 15 year old guy would be caught saying that in _public_? He panted as he ran toward me, blond hair swinging, red eyes gleaming.

I was caught in a bone crushing hug. Of course, I didn't hug back, _real _guys don't hug, but it still hurt like a bitch.

"Nice to see you too, little king… er…big king…" I panted out after he released me.

"Ikuto-kun!" I froze and prepared to be tackled by my crazy incest-loving sister. But to my surprise and immense happiness, she stayed where she was behind Tadase… _holding Kukai Souma's hand._ Not that I had a problem with that, considering it got Utau off _my_ ass, thank god.

So, greetings were said, introductions were made for those who I hadn't formally met (Rima, Nagihiko, Yaya) my trip was discussed, and the charas chatted but I finally got to the topic clawing its way to the front of my brain.

"So… where's Amu?" Their faces convulsed and twisted until they held an array of emotion from revulsion to rage.

"Missing… probably dead. Who really gives a damn anymore?" Tadase finished as I choked on my own saliva. I had _just _seen her and she was _missing?_ What the hell was going on? And if that were the case, you would think they would text me or… you know… care?

"W-why didn't you tell me?" My voice was as shaky as I'd ever heard it, my eyes feeling like they would pop from my head at any moment.

"It wasn't worth bothering you about." Utau shrugged. I exploded with fury.

"WHAT THE HELL? WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT WASN'T _WORTH IT_? SHE'S YOUR FRIEND GODDAMMIT!" Everyone was stunned into silence, Utau cowered into Kukai's chest, who flinched, and Yaya sobbed silently. It was Rima who spoke up.

"That was before her heart's eggs broke."


	4. Chapter 4: Shatter

Ikuto pov

Broken, not working, busted, wrecked, _out of order._ Amu's heart was _literally _broken, not metaphorically like you see on all of those crappy romance movies, her heart's eggs were _shattered_. Oh. Shit.

"How… how did they break?" My voice still sounded incredibly weak, despite my best efforts t make it sound stern.

"Her house caught on fire when she was out… and killed the family. She came home just in time to see the firemen pull out Ami's body. She broke them herself."

There was a misconnection somewhere in my brain because I wasn't processing the new information. _'She broke them herself.'_ Or, in other words, _'She she stuffed her charas into their eggs and smashed them against a rock because it was too much.'_ Yeah. That seems about right.

"…Bitch didn't even talk to us by herself. She chewed us out whenever we went near her," I gritted my teeth. I was about ready to murder Kukai and make it look like an accident, but he just kept going.

"She liked pain, to give and receive it. Burned us with a lighter when we asked her to come out with us. Fucking sadist." He had just finished his muttered thought when my fist connected with his jaw, ripping his hand from Utau's as he fell back.

"Wouldn't you feel the same if it was _your _family and _your _heart? I'm sure she has no control over how she acts. _She doesn't have a freaking heart."_ I towered over Kukai.

"Abandoning your charas is unforgivable." I whirled on Utau.

"What about _you?_ Remember how you treated Eru when you still worked for Easter? She _ran away!_" Utau winced.

The atmosphere was so taut you could cut it with a knife. There was once again dead silence, and the very minimal people passing though the park were staring at us. Yoru's gentle sobbing broke the time-freeze.

"Miki ~nya…" He sniffled, yellow cat eyes tearing up as he curled up on my shoulder.

"I left, her family died, her eggs broke, for all the crap she's been through I'd say that she's in good shape. If it were any of us, we'd have committed suicide or something by now. She's doing well." I said softly, making stern eye contact with every one of them.

One question still lingered in my mind; if she had run away or something, why did she stay in the same area with the risk of getting caught by people looking for her? It didn't make much sense. If she'd really been desperate, she could've called me and I would've gotten her plane tickets to live in that apartment with me in London. Although, she was rather changed, and the new Amu didn't seem like the "stop and ask for directions" type…

Nagihiko's expressions were rapidly changing, and I remembered he hadn't said anything.

"Something to add, Nagihiko?" He looked startled, but his face then settled back into the same unidentifiable expression it was before.

"Yeah… how did you know she'd in good shape…?"


	5. Chapter 5: Grim Reaper

Ikuto pov

I froze. At times like this I thanked my lucky stars that I was such a good liar. If not, I would've crumbled and admitted I'd seen her, which, with her being missing and all, wouldn't have gone over very well…

"You told me she wouldn't talk to you before. To me that's good shape." I shrugged smoothly. Everyone but Nagihiko looked relieved. Nagihiko looked even more skeptical than before.

"Yeah… but we also told you that she burned us when we asked her to go out to the mall." I winced. _Shit! I forgot about the whole sadistic-lunatic-who-plays-with-fire thing._

"Well… She was out when her house burned down." I muttered, hoping he couldn't detect the loathing in my voice when I said the last part.

"Hmm… I guess that explains it then…" He still looked slightly unsure, but then shrugged it off, stretching and yawning.

"Well, it's been nice, but I'm going home! See you guys later!" Nagihiko waved at all of us and began walking off in the presumable direction of his house. My attention turned to Tadase as he let out a muttered curse, looking at his watch.

"I'm late for work! Azumi's going to have my head… _again._ Bye!" He muttered as he scrambled away.

"Yeah, Yukari's gonna be pretty pissed if I'm late for another recording…" Utau trailed off, insinuating that she'd like to drive there, considering the studio was across town.

"I'll take you." Kukai said, knowing his cue. He jangled his keys as he walked away.

"Rima, Yaya, Ikuto, you coming?"

The girls' heads snapped up and they ran after the two, I, on the other hand, stayed behind.

"I'll pass, thanks" I said, strolling away, not really knowing where I was going.

*An Hour Later*

Somehow, I'd made it to where Amu lived. No, scratch that. Somehow, I'd made it to where Amu _used_ to live. All that signified the Hinamori's had ever set foot here were the letters on the charred mailbox.

The place was reduced to blackened planks, pitted earth, and broken glass. I fell to my knees, finally coming to grips that such a thing could actually happen to someone I knew. The Hinamoris… Amu's little sister Ami… gone. Just…like…that. I had hoped that someone was pulling my leg. Pulling some sick joke. Hoping, pleading that that this was all part of my nightmare based on Amu withdrawal. But, here I was, close to tears because it was all true. If only I'd have-

"Where'd she go?"

"We lost her, dammit!"

"How do we tell Origin's leader!"

"Oh shit, we're screwed!"

Voices sounded all around me, looking for someone who was apparently wanted by this "Origin"… Several armed men and women in black suits stalked around, looking this way and that, muttering things along the lines of _'I could've sworn she went this way!' _and_ 'if we don't get her we're all losing our heads!'_

"Boko no Kokoro BREAK!" Amu's perfunctory voice shattered my own thoughts and those of the Origin minions. My eyes instantly scanned for her, but she was nowhere in sight.

"Charanari- Grim Reaper!" My eyes widened to the point I would've not thought humanly possible at the sight before me. _A new character transformation. _

She wore a face-masking hooded black cape that went to her knees and black leather pants that sported a silver chain hanging from the belt loops. Her feet and hands were the only things that were bare, but from that alone I could see she was even paler than when I'd seen her earlier. In those hands, however, she bore a lethal weapon. I followed my gaze up the 6 foot black swan-like rod, all the way to the poisonous curve of the blade that seemed to be made by the pure essence of moonlight.

She seemed to vanish, she moved so fast, swinging and twirling her toxic scythe so gracefully it was like she was a god. I watched from behind her home's remains as she sprayed the blood of the offending men all over the trees and ground as they screamed and begged for leniency. She gave none.

When it was all over, she simply pulled out a rag and cleaned her scythe as another's blood dripped from her cloak. People lay in pieces; their crisp black suits now tattered to the point that they could be rendered scandalous, limbs missing, flesh torn apart, vital organs strewn across the road, it was enough to induce vomit. _Amu… what's happened to you?_


	6. Chapter 6: Soldier's Curse

Ikuto pov

"I know you're here." At first I wasn't even sure if she was the one talking, seeing as her mouth barely moved and she didn't lift her gaze from the rag that she was using to clean her instrument of torture. I contemplated running for it, but that idea was immediately shot down when I remembered her inhuman speed just moments ago. I was terrified of what she could do to me.

I stayed still for what seemed like forever, hoping she would assume that she had been wrong and walk away. And to my surprise, she did. Only she didn't walk, she used the inhuman speed and was gone in a blur, leaving behind her monstrous disarray of limbs and flesh.

I let out the breath I didn't know I had been holding as I stood and took inventory of the damage Amu had done, not daring to get a single step closer. Amu had just killed more than the death penalty even allowed. If the police caught her she'd be sent to jail and executed on spot.

I slowly rose from the ground, bile churning in my stomach as I did so. I felt a strangely uncomfortable breeze from behind my back, but before I could turn around, a long midnight staff pressed into my throat, holding me to another body. I felt the flawless curvature of the obviously female body, her hot breath caressing my shoulder blade. I would've smirked had it not been for the slight choking problem.

"Do you like it?" Hell no I don't like this! You're trying to crush my throat!

"Urk!" She tightened the rod on my windpipe.

"Really? I thought you'd like the message. I took extra time on it, you know." _Whaaat?_ Then I saw it. My name was sketched out in filthy red ink all over the pavement of the road, a hacked-off head dotting the "I". But that wasn't it. The message continued, as promised, and when read in its entirety, translated _'Ikuto is the one that killed me.'_

"Pretty, huh?" She whispered in my ear approvingly towards her handiwork.

Her steel grip pinning the scythe to my throat dramatically loosened until it was finally gone, making me fall pathetically to the ground from lack of air.

"Yoru…" I panted feebly. He instantly flew from his hiding place behind my violin case, his egg landing in my hand.

"Boko no Kokoro, unlock!" The atmosphere was filled with a brilliant blue light and adrenaline rushed through me as the transformation began. My senses were extended, my hearing becoming more potent as sound pulsed through the cat ears at the top of my head; my tail extended my sense of touch two feet behind me.

"Charanari, Black Lynx!" I landed gracefully in front of Amu, the large silver cross on my chest swishing very softly.

"Slash Claw!" I really didn't want to hurt Amu, but given her current state, She'd kill me before I even had the chance to.

Just as I'd thought, the wicked blade of her scythe obstructed my claws from even leaving a mark. I continued to attack with a vengeance, but she zipped in and out so fast that before I knew it, her blade had pinned me to the ground by my throat, her bare heel digging into my rib cage painfully.

I would say she'd stolen my smirk, but it was actually quite different than my own. My smirk was perverted and smug, hers was… sadistic, wild and generally had an _'I'd like it very much if you died right now,' _air to it.

"You're not serious," I couldn't believe the words coming out of my mouth at that moment. _Yeah, Ikuto, let's say that to the girl holding a blade to your throat, baka. _However, I continued.

"If you were serious, you would've killed me already. You've had plenty of chances." Audacity. There was the word I'd been looking for. I had major audacity, and apparently Amu agreed.

She removed her blade and foot from me, and spoke with authority and irritation in a seemingly random direction.

"MIKI! Switch with Ran!" I remembered Ran; she was Amu's sporty chara. She wore an all pink cheerleading outfit.And her new character transformation was _this?_ I was curious, in a suicidal way, to see Miki's, Yoru's crush, new character transformation.

Ran's stitched X egg flew from Amu's body just seconds before Miki's stitched X egg entered. An eerie purple light cloaked the girl as she transformed.

"Boko no Kokoro, BREAK! Charanari, Soldier's Curse!" Amu wore a black army-styled coat, gold buttons trailing in pairs from the high collar, down to her waist, where the torn black tulle jutted out underneath, accentuating the tailed back of the coat and her hair, which was pulled into two low folded pigtails. All of this would look smoking hot, if it weren't for that damned machine gun. Oi. 


	7. Chapter 7: Lovely Malice

Ikuto pov

"Maybe now you'll take me more seriously, dumbass." She raised her torture mechanism; one eye closed, and shot, a thunderous, earth shattering blast radiating from the gadget. The shot would've hit me straight in the heart, had it not been for my character transformation. I leapt out of the way just in time; the bullet zoomed past, dangerously close to my right arm.

My steel claws took a massive beating from blocking at least a dozen of her very well blasted projectiles. Just as I thought of how pathetically dull my claws were getting, a bullet grazed my shoulder, and pain racked my body like venom. Lethargy wrestled my incentive and perception to the ground, until I just lied on the ground, half dead.

My vision started to cave in on itself, everything in the corners of my vision vanishing into the gray that, in my groggy condition, made me think of ghosts eating everything in their wakes.

Amu's lovely, yet blank face was inches from my own, the gray wisping away at the edges, almost as if she were a photograph in which someone had lit the edges.

"Am I serious enough for you now, _Ikuto?"_ Once again, my name was treated as a virus, almost as if I was subhuman somehow. Her bow shaped lips brushed my ear, earning a shudder from me. Even though I was steadily losing feeling in my body, my ears were still my disadvantage.

"Scared yet? Don't worry, you won't die, I'm saving _you_ for last. The bullet had morphine in it. Sleep well." _No. No_. _No. NO! I've got to save you, Amu! Don't try to stop me!_ I fought the numbing agent, wrestled the lethargy back out of my body, savagely slashed at the gray ghosts, sucked out the painful venom. My sagged eyelids snapped open as wide as they would go, the glaze bleeding from my irises. I was awake as I'd ever be.

Amu jumped off the spot she'd been sitting, which, coincidentally, was my chest. I swung countless times with my claws, to be blocked by the barrel of her gun every time. But that was okay, I would do whatever it took to bring Amu to her senses. Whatever it took.

"SUU! Get over here!" Amu snapped when I almost hit her. Just like the switch with Ran and Miki, Miki's egg flew out and a green stitched clover egg with a large white X flew in directly after. The same X egg energy enveloped Amu as she transformed into something presumably more dreadful than both Grim Reaper and Soldier's Curse.

"Boko no Kokoro, BREAK!" The X egg energy shattered, and the transformed monster crouched.

"Charanari, Lovely Malice…" She hissed through her suddenly sharp teeth. The outfit was rather simple; she wore a blinding white dress that was so loose one of the white straps was halfway down her shoulder, the other not far behind, yet; somehow, her curves were all hugged and accentuated in the most sensual manner. The dress and the straps were connected, as if someone had simply cut out a scoop neck collar and arm holes out of a white, very sexy, sack. The bottom of the dress was torn oddly, not on purpose for sure; the longest scraps of fabric were frayed at the end, which reached Amu's mid calves. The shorter pieces were, in some places, up to her lower thighs.

The dress, however sexy it was, didn't capture my attention first. What did was the excessive amounts of red. The ends of her loose hair were dyed crimson and dripped onto her arms, her wildly contorted face held red war paint on each cheek, and I was betting everything I had that it wasn't actually paint.

What was most petrifying was the blood on her dress. The ends were drenched in the liquid, and made pools around her bare feet. In some places it almost looked as if someone had tried to spray paint the dress red, but the can was empty so it came out in small droplets. The most gruesome of all, were the bloody hand prints. It looked like someone had grabbed her dress while coated in their own lifeblood. Another was dragged, like she were walking through and someone, thought to be dead, reached their arm out in a final attempt to stop Amu.

She didn't charge, just stood, smiling innocently up at me. When she did approach me, her movements were slow and deliberate, in an attempt not to alarm me. When I didn't stop her, she continued until her chest and mine were less than a foot away. She stood on her tip toes and pulled my lips to hers softly.

It was as I'd always secretly imagined, only on vastly different circumstances. She tasted as I'd envisioned as well; mint and strawberries. It was a strange combination, but I'd recommend it to anyone. She smiled against my lips as I leaned to the kiss, and rammed the back of my head against a tree.

I wiped the blood from my nose, and prepared to attack.

"Good, you're both here."


	8. Chapter 8: Dead Ringer

**Sorry I haven't updated. I was away for the week. **

_**Lose something? ~Black Cheshire**_

Ikuto pov

We both froze.

"Origin Conglomerate's leader requests your presence." The brown haired man pushed up his glasses, his forest green eyes threatening us to refuse. So leave it to me to say the most genius thing.

"Origin whaa…?"

"Easter's replacement, only we're larger in size and have more… persuasive methods." That drew my attention to the guns him and his league of men in black had in their belts.

I shoved Amu behind me and hissed pointedly at the Origin Minions. They didn't even look fazed. _Way to impress Amu, baka._

"We have travel arrangements a quarter mile away, come along." He didn't move, so he obviously knew we weren't going to follow. After a tense few minutes of silence, he sighed.

"What a pity. I detest wasting firearms on children." He sighed. The Origin Minions wordlessly pointed their guns.

"DIAAA!" The orange egg went flying at speeds I didn't know possible into Amu's chest, the other flying out of sight.

"Boko no Kokoro, BREAK!" The purple energy was more vibrant than ever. It pulsed and writhed as it encased Amu in its midnight clutches. The energy cracked, then shattered to millions of pieces.

The bullets whizzed through the air, the shots sounding out like fireworks. But, instead of hitting and killing us, they ricocheted off an invisible shield Amu had erected.

She landed gracefully, pink braid whipping her back.

"Charanari, Dead Ringer." Amu was dressed in Victorian styled clothing. She wore a dingy white floor length dress that came in tight high on her waist, had quarter length sleeves, and was far too loose for my perverted tastes on the top. The dress was rather plain, save the lace design on her chest and making up the high collar. Everything, even the ribbon tying her hair, looked as if buried for a good century, including Amu herself.

Her skin had gone from ivory to translucent white, deep gray circles appearing around her dead gold eyes. Her chapped, color drained lips and nose protruded oddly in comparison to her sunken cheekbones.

An engraved gold bell hung from a ribbon tied to her wrist, and I remembered from what I'd seen in movies and heard in school, that a few centuries ago they'd bury people who they _thought _were dead with a cord tied around their wrists that lead to a bell above ground. Then, when the 'dead' person awoke in a coffin and freaked out, the bell would ring, therefore being named 'dead ringers' since they died from lack of air anyway. Kills your faith in humanity, huh?

Recovering from the initial shock of bullets bouncing off a person, the Origin Minions reloaded their guns and tried again.

Let me just say, for the record, we all knew from what had happened between Amu and the last batch of goons that these, although their numbers were quite a bit greater, would not last long. So, needless to say, when they shot again, I wouldn't want to be them.

"Comatose Chime." The light innocent child's voice that came from Amu's mouth sounded so angelic that we all half-expected something like lollypops and gum drops to fall from the sky. Instead, vibrations from the bell zipped toward the men in black, knocking the whole front row of about twenty, dead as a doornail.

The rest of the Origin Minions gasped and stared wide eyed before hesitantly bringing their quivering gazes towards the homicidal femme fatal in front of them.

"What the hell? FIRE!" The man who has spoken first dropped the formal lingo and exchanged it for normal speech.

Arrays of hissed whispers were heard that said something along the lines of _'I'm out of ammo!' 'she's got a shield!' _and _'I don't want to die!'_

"FIRE!" Feisty, aren't we dumbass?

But he must've had _some_ kind of impact on their pay roles, because they instantly straightened up their formation and raised their guns.

This was bad. Amu looked like she was running on a very low tank of gas as it was, with putting up that massive mind shield and whatnot. As it was, the bullets were noticeably closer than that of the first time the shield had been used. It was draining her. Amu could have probably dodged the hits easily, like before, but she was using all of her energy protecting _me._ That was supposed to be my job to protect _her._

I ran forward to help, but she clenched her eyes shut and flung her arms out, fingers pushing on the unseen defense mechanism.

That's when my worst fear came true.

That one thing you wake up screaming because of.

The thing that makes you writhe just thinking about.

The shot was earsplitting. Everything moved in slow motion. The film ran out of color. The cameraman dropped the lens.

Bullets being shot and my shouts were useless. Not even heard. All that was seen, all that was heard, was that one shot from behind. The man, _that man had a hand gun_. The wretched bullet crept up to Amu in a slow shift and rammed her shoulder, along with the color and sound ramming my brain.

A scream. I'm not sure if it was hers, mine or a combination.

I was too shocked to be able to tell you what hit the pavement first, but I can recollect the last thing to fall.

A curtain of pink, loose from its braided confines, tumbled over her head and kissed the ground a few feet from the top of her head.

Pink. Shot. Shoulder. Handgun. Shield. Behind. Injury.

My own mind was betraying me. It shorted out and stopped working. Words popped from the screeching chaos rampaging my head. They roundhouse kicked me back to reality. Amu. She was lying on the ground, the monstrous hole in her shoulder crying dirty tears.

Fury boiled my insides until my vision was red. My body moved by itself, dodging and weaving around the shots with newfound energy and speed. My hands turned to fists and swung like a maniac on crack. I didn't hit too hard, so no one died, but they were knocked out cold. I sprinted full speed toward Amu, who was losing a lot of blood.

I bent to pick her up.

"Onee-chan!" She wailed in her unconscious state. My heart broke as a tears slipped down her cheeks in steady streams. I hooked my arms underneath her knees and neck, carefully avoiding her shoulder. Through the rubble of the Hinamori's last home I trudged.


	9. Chapter 9: White Hell

Amu pov

White. So white. I'd assume I was dead, but Hell isn't square. Haziness painfully slowly bled from my mind until two wires in my brain connected. White room. That familiar little prison in the form of a white room. The soft voiced woman I never saw that came in three times a day to give me food I never ate. The days I'd spent in that plain white cot, all day, all night, sewing my heart back together, piece by piece, egg by egg.

_FLASHBACK_

'Damn! Stupid, stupid, STUPID! The pieces keep fucking breaking!' _My thoughts were the only thing safe. I felt watched at all times, I never uttered a word out loud in fear of _"Retirement"_. _

_ I hacked away at the bed sheets with a piece of glass, pulling free some thread. We weren't allowed to have sharp objects here, for obvious reasons, but if you don't tattle, I'll tell you where I got it. _

_ I used to sleep in the rubble of my house, when I found an old shattered picture frame. I kept the picture AND the glass, but shhhh, it's a secret._

_ "Sweetheart, I brought you some oatmeal this morning!" The elderly woman's voice penetrated the steel door and I stuffed the eggs in the pillowcase and the glass in my mouth._

_ The door was solid steel save the jail cell-like bars at the top, which, thankfully the lady was too short to see though. _

_ "Oh dear! It looks like it's time to see the doctor again. You look rather ill, darling." Like you care. Just shut up and leave. _

_ "Aya, love, when we get back can you get him please?" I looked over, and sure enough, there was a small girl with long braided brown hair and scared pink eyes. She nodded numbly._

_ The elderly nurse walked out wordlessly, leaving the bowl on the tray at the foot of my cot._

_ "Poor dear. Maybe the doctor will bring her around." _

_*_Three hours later*

'DONE!' _I held up the stitched orange x egg. This was all I needed to be out of this hell hole. Now that all four eggs were done I had Miki and Ran, my offense, and Suu and Dia as my defense._

_ Very quietly I transformed with Suu and used the superior strength to bend the bars. I used Ran's speed to run past Origin's Central Psychotic Ward forever. _

_END FLASHBACK_

But I didn't leave forever. Because here I was, back at square one. I looked down and sighed. I still had Dia, but she wasn't a very strong fighter.

Why was I even here? I wasn't crazy; I'd cured myself by focusing all my hate on _him_. But… if I did that then why did I waste all of my precious energy protecting _him?_

Nothing made any sense.

And I was damned to the man-made Hell again on top of it.

Thanks god, hate you too.

"…Amu, you up?" I froze mid-thought. This voice was a man. It wasn't the doctor's voice, and he was the only man allowed in my room. I treated him like everyone else, I didn't look at him, I didn't respond in any way and I did. Not. Speak.

"Come on, Amu. I know you're awake." It struck me. Nobody, not even that elderly lady, called me by my first name. The woman called me 'dear' or 'sweetheart' and the doctor called me 'Miss. Hinamori'.

Very slowly I turned toward the voice. Ink blue eyes met mine.

They took _him_ here too? Why would they do that? Even if they wanted him prisoner, they would've kept him in the prison I saw on the way out not the psychotic ward.

"Why are _you _here?" I hissed, venom dripping from my voice.

"This _is_ my apartment. Don't you think that kind of gives me the _right_ to be here?" He smirked that blood boiling smirk that I used to be so freaked out about, but now I showed nothing.

I sat up, wincing multiple times but nonetheless waving his offered help away as I clutched my tightly wrapped shoulder. I glanced around the room to find that it was indeed an apartment bedroom. Ahem, lets redo that sentence. It was a very, _very_ bare apartment bedroom. The walls were a crisp, blinding white that matched the sheets on the cot and the curtains over the windows beside the cot.

There were three cans of paint in the corner of the room, one of which appeared to have been previously opened. The dark blue stained bristles of the brush resting on the top of the can and the unfinished painted blue corner served as proof.

The only other thing in the room was a small cardboard box peeking out from underneath the cot, holding a black comforter with blue paws on it, another pillow, some posters and a lamp.

I slid my legs off the side of the cot to see that I was still in Dia's character transformation, but the shoulder of the dress had been cut off so it could be bandaged. Let me just put out there that not only was the shoulder cut off, but most of the chest was also, much more than needed. I sighed.

"Perv." I muttered. He smirked and cupped one ear.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Say again, please?"

"I don't think I will." I stated absently as I prepared myself to stand.

"Awww you're so mean, Amu-chii!" He whined, pouting and crossing his arms like a child, trying to break my willpower.

I winced badly as the shattered pieces of Dia's egg ripped themselves from my chest, and in a flash of black light, I was back in the clothes I was in before. I wore acid wash super-skinny jeans with horizontal slashes all the way down the leg, and a deconstructed black and white horizontal striped sweatshirt which I had cut the sleeves off of.

I stood too fast and my brain started to repeatedly bash itself against my forehead. Soon enough the floor came running up to slap me in the face, but it never got its chance. _He_ caught me and hugged me to his chest, chuckling.

"Patience, my dear child, _patience_." His breath stroked my neck in a way that made me feel odd.

I squirmed out of his grasp and took it slow. One foot in front of the other; left, right; blink, breathe, repeat.

"Thank you, Amu." I froze.


	10. Chapter 10: We All Fall Down

Amu pov

_His_ arms circled my waist and his nose nuzzled the uninjured side of my neck.

"You saved my life, do you know that?" He breathed.

"I can end it just as quickly."

"Why did you save me?" _That's a really good question, isn't it?_ I didn't answer. I didn't know _how_ to answer. I felt the need? I was paying him back for protecting me in the past? I was trying to make him guilty?

"Could it be… because little Amu _loves_ me?" He smirked against my neck. Semi-compassionate moment over.

I wiggled out of his grasp again.

"Don't touch me!" That came out much harsher than intended. I tried to cap my emotions, it was something I learned from the insane asylum, but they were breaking out and it was all _his_ fault!

His hair masked his face.

"What did I do?" My eyes widened. What did he do? What did he do? He started the chain of events that led to the destruction of my life! When he left, I tried so hard to be upbeat. I went out with my friends every day, faked a smile every day, and held hands with Tadase _every day_. I tried so _hard!_ So why, when I killed myself inside for _those people_, did I come home from seeing _those people_ because they insisted upon it, to doctors covering Ami with a sheet in front of my burning memories! _WHY? _

_FLASHBACK_

_ "Amu-chan!" My mother's voice rang out._

_ "You have visitors!" I groaned. Didn't I just see them yesterday? I spent all day with them getting ice cream!_

_ "Okay, be down in a second!" I splashed my face with cold water in the bathroom to wake myself up, and then looked for my holy grail. Ah-ha! My concealer! _

_ I never wore makeup before, but after Ikuto left, for some reason I kept losing sleep and getting bags under my eyes. They appeared the day after he was gone, and I snuck out and bought concealer that day when Tadase commented that I looked tired. Since then I'd worn a heavy bit under my eyes to recreate the old Amu._

_ I ran down stairs when I finished._

_ "I hope you didn't wait long!" I smiled at each of my friends, Rima, Yaya, Tadase, Nagihiko, Kukai and Utau. _

_ "Not at all." Tadase took my hand, smiling sweetly._

_ "Those two are 'in the mood' again!" Yaya giggled as we walked out of the house and down the street._

_ "Y-Yaya!" I stuttered as well as I could, holding my breath to fake a blush. Everyone laughed, including me, sort of._

_The day consisted of the amusement park, cotton candy, ring toss games, and fake smiles._

_*6 pm*_

_ "Well guys, I've got to go! My mom will be mad if I'm late for dinner, bye!"_

_ "Why don't we walk you home?" Because I'll strangle you, that's why._

_ "Yeah, let's walk Amu-chii home!" Let's not. _

_ I completely lost that battle. We walked home, chattering about assorted things, how my thirteenth birthday was, how Yaya's little brother was getting along, stuff like that. Until it happened._

_ First we saw the ambulance. It was a relatively normal occurrence on my street considering the kid five doors down from me never seemed to get that swing+ jump=broken arm. _

_ Next came the smoke. It was thick black smoke that didn't come from chimneys. _

_ Last, I saw the orange glow and heard the wailing sirens in the direction of my house. I broke off into a run._

_ The others were too absorbed in their own superficial world of teen gossip to notice all of these signs, or even the fact of my sprinting like a mad woman._

_ I screamed. It seemed like all I could do was scream. My throat started to burn before it went raw to the point of numbness. People buzzed all around me as I knelt, screaming. Neighbors stood in awe, doctors and firemen tried to calm me but I didn't hear. I screeched out, tasting hot salt water on my tongue. My voice was being used up quickly, and if I kept it up I thought my throat might bleed. I didn't care in the slightest. _

_ I wailed at the top of my lungs, rocking back and forth as they pulled a blackened six year old from the ashes. At least I thought that's what it was. I couldn't see from the tears blurring my vision, I couldn't hear through my own cries. My senses were fried. _

_ I could just feel hands stroking my back, and the hum of the familiar voices of the six teens I'd been out with. I slapped them away. Hard._

_ Again I was running. Running with bloody lungs, my frame trembling. My name was called from every direction, echoing through the night. The voices contorted as I ran further, they chased me. More voices joined, unfamiliar now, screams that mocked my stupidity, why wasn't I there? Why did I leave them? Why can't I convince anyone to stay with me?_

'STOP IT! PLEASE!' _My voice was gone; if I spoke it would come out as an indecipherable rasp. The voices didn't heed my pleas. They tripled in force, suffocating me in their toxic clutches. They chuckled at my panic, mimicking the voices of all I once trusted. I was much too far from the house for anyone to be calling me. _

_ The shoelace of my converse caught on a branch of some sort, sending me toppling forward. Rocks caught my fall, bruising my torso and scraping my palms, but I didn't mind. I kicked off my shoes and socks, dipping my hands in the flowing ice water of the small creek. _

_ My eyes squeezed shut at the pain of the water coming in contact with the dirty cuts across my palms. _

_**'That's nothing to burning alive! Get used to it!' **__My mother's voice spat._

_**'Wipe those filthy tears! As if you'll miss us! You planned this!'**__ I dunked my head under the churning water at my father's hate-filled voice. _

_ The last voice drove me to do the unthinkable. It wasn't angry at all, just sad and lost._

_**'Onee-chan…'**__ Ami sniffed __**'Why weren't you there, Onee-chan? I'm scared. It burns and I can't stop it.'**_

__'SCREW IT!' _I screamed at the voices, chucking the closest thing I could find at a tree. It smashed into millions of little red pieces, and I instantly felt a infectious pain in my chest. Ran's egg. My heart. I just smashed a piece of my heart. It seemed like a low price to pay for killing my family. I felt around to find that the eggs had spilled from my bag, all marked with white x's. _

_ Experimentally, I threw Miki's egg against a rock. The same result ensued. The pain was raw and jagged. Like a deep wound reopened. I liked it._

'So that's what was wrong with me. My heart is my weakness.' _I reassured myself as I ground Suu into the earth with my bare foot. The pain was more intense as I got closer to the ultimate end of my heart. I loved it. _

_ I held the last of my heart in my hands, laughing with the voices at the pathetic memory of trying to get the x off of this very egg. The egg that I crushed to smithereens in my hand. The pain ripped through me like a dull rusty knife plunged into my chest. I fell to my knees at the crushing force of it. I pressed my nails into my palms to try to balance the pain. The creek ran red as I plunged my hands under. Ice pulsed through my veins, making my mind spin. The voices screamed, invading my head, taking control. _

_ I heard a violin play from afar and I stiffened. It was as beautiful as _his_ music. The tune was unemotional, but I still dragged toward it like a moth to light, in hopes. A female voice was added to it._

_(One Republic- Fall Down)_

"Step out the door and it feels like rain,

That's the sound, that's the sound on your window pane.

_ As I wandered toward the lovely voice, rain as sharp as glass hailed from the sky._

Take to the streets but you can't ignore,

That's the sound, that's the sound, your waiting for.

_ Strangely, even though I had tried to forget Ikuto, I still yearned for the sound of his violin. This song started to freak me out, but at the same time, the voices and pain were fading out._

If ever your world starts crashing down,

Whenever your world starts crashing down, whenever your world starts crashing down,

That's when you find me…

_ And that was exactly what I was doing. Even though it wasn't Ikuto, I felt the need to find the voice. The sadness in me was leading my blindly towards the sound._

Yeah,

God love your soul and your aching bones,

Take a breath,

Take a step,

Meet me down below.

Everyone's the same,

Our fingers to our toes.

We just can't get a ride,

But we're on the road.

If ever your world starts crashing down,

Whenever your world starts crashing down, whenever your world starts crashing down,

That's when you find me…

Yeah,

Lost till you're found,

Swim till you drown,

No, no we all fall down.

Love till you hate,

Strong till you break,

No, no we all fall…down.

_ I came to a clearing. Steam rose in the conflict between the icy rain and the sun-warmed grass that was strangely soft and fine between my toes. _

_ I looked on to see several lost and pathetic beings, like me. There were birds with bad wings, flying at new speeds, the wings seeming to grow stronger each time the bow stroked the cords of the violin. There was a rabbit with an ear missing; a wolf that had lost its pack, a clawless cat, all of them seemed relieved of their troubles. I felt it too, listening. The voices were gone, I felt like I was walking on air. I breathed in deeply and her flat midnight blue eyes beckoned me to sit and listen with the animals._

_ She had glossy black hair cut short and spiky. It made me think painfully of Ikuto, but at the same time I got the feeling she was the one person who could take my mind off of everything. _

_ I sat at her feet as she uttered the next line from her song._

If ever your world starts crashing down,

Whenever your world starts crashing down, if ever your world starts crashing down,

That's when you'll find-find me!

Lost till you're found,

Swim till you drown,

No, no we all fall down.

Love till you hate,

Strong till you break,

No, no we all fall down!

All fall down,

We all fall down,

All fall down!

(down)

We all fall down,

All fall down,

All fall down!

Lost till you're found,

Swim till you drown,

No, no we all fall down.

Love till you hate,

Strong till you break,

No, no we all… fall… down…

_ She drew her bow away from the strings on her glass violin, putting it carefully in a space made at the base of a tree by the roots curling around each other._

_ The animals scurried away when she finished, but I didn't move a muscle. _

_ "Something bad has happened to you." It was a statement, not a question. I forced myself to look past her pointed black toenails, up her bone-like black leather clad legs, past her black and white striped long sleeved midriff top, to her white porcelain emotionless face. _

_ The memory of Ami's charred remains sent me into a fit of tears again. The girl got on her knees in front of me, about the same height as I was, only emaciated. _

_ I threw myself into her arms, somehow feeling safer in her embrace. It was very much like the relationship of a young child and her older sister even though I didn't even know her name._

_ "I need to get out of here, Onee-chan." She nodded, her white face still unexpressive, and lifted me quite easily into her arms, which surprised me. I let out a yelp as she started running._

_ The speed was exhilarating. I felt like I was flying. All I could think about as I looked up at her face was the Twilight Saga, strangely enough._

_ "…Onee-chan… What… is your name?" I chickened out, my voice small._

_ "In this life? I don't have a name, just nicknames. But in the time when there was a soul in my body, it was Alice. Yours was Jane. You were my younger sister by seven years. I died with much too many sins and… well now this body serves as a demon." She smirked down at me. Was this _funny_ to her? I would accuse her of lying, but seeing as she was running in possible circles at speeds unimaginable kept me quiet. _

_FLASHBACK END_

'Onee-chan' was a figment of my delusions. The voices created her to mock me. I should've figured it out, with her eyes, the violin, and the 'demon' thing. Only when she'd waved to me as I was being dragged away then vanished did I realize that she wasn't really there. The whole chain of events was caused because of the man in front of me.

"What did I _do?"_ he replayed after I came back from zoning out.

"You left me when I….I…."

"When you…?"

"LOVED YOU-YOU IDIOTIC DUMBASS!"


	11. Chapter 11: Angel of Mercy

Ikuto pov

My eyes widened at the broken woman in front of me. I had planned to work at taking down her wall brick by brick, but now she was coming apart at the seams.

Tears threw themselves down her cheeks, meeting at her chin, sobs echoing throughout my pitifully under decorated apartment bedroom. I stared at her. She'd loved me. She'd never told me she felt that way. All this time, I'd loved her secretly, and apparently all this time she had to. But that ended. _Ikuto you idiotic dumbass!_

I reached to pull her into an embrace, but she slapped my hands away.

"DON'T _TOUCH_ ME!" She shouted through her tears before pounding her fists on my chest weakly when I kept approaching.

She slammed the door shut. It took me a numb moment to realize that she didn't just slam it for the hell of it, she went _through_ _it_ first. What a revelation. Yeah, real hope for the future generation.

I cursed and ran after her. She just loved to make my life a living hell, I know she did. Karma really is a bitch isn't it? I continued to run, the cold fall air burning my lungs as I panted.

The once familiar surroundings now mocked me, repeating the same scenery over and over like running through a painting. It was the early hours of the morning now, so there was nothing to light my way but the pale glow of the crescent moon. It wasn't enough.

More had happened in twelve hours than had ever happened to me in the span of nineteen years. I almost laughed at the fact that yesterday I'd been on a train daydreaming about Amu running to me, which I secretly wished for, and now _I_ was running _after_ _her._ Like I said though, I _almost_ laughed.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, clouds suffocated the moonlight, leaving me ungracefully scrambling around tree roots and boulders in pitch black night.

I thought back to when I left. I'd started to regret leaving, I missed _certain people_ terribly, and I could barely compose the piece for my entry project to a summer orchestra in France.

The song I came up with didn't even have violin in it, so when the conductor saw it, he frowned. Then he smiled really wide.

_FLASHBACK_

_ "It doesn't have the violin… I'm sorry sir but it wouldn't work." His lips twisted downward, bringing his white wiry mustache with it. He glanced down at the paper in my outstretched hands._

_ "Perhaps we could convert it…?" The question seemed to be more to himself than me. He gingerly took the paper, as if it was made of shaved glass. _

_ His brows merged as he read the notes, humming it slightly to get the full effect. He blinked in surprise at the second page with the long-pondered lyrics written on it._

_ "Hmm. You've outdone yourself Mr. Tsukiyomi, lyrics as well?" I nodded and gestured for him to read them. He put on the glasses that he conveniently remembered were on his head unlike most days when we had to tell him. It confused me, really, he read notes perfectly without any sort of optical aid, yet when it came to actually reading _words_ he was suddenly blind._

_ A smile came onto his face, crinkling his eyes and folding the sides of his whiskered mouth. He angled down his glasses with his index finger, glancing up at me._

_ "You're in love, Mr. Tsukiyomi."_

_FLASHBACK END_

At that moment, I had, for the first time in my life, become absolutely speechless, completely at loss of a snide remark of any kind. Why? Because nobody but Amu had ever pinpointed my feelings like that. He was absolutely right, I'd realized. That's why it burned to leave her. I thought I was in love with music, but in reality it came second to Amu.

I found new strength, new speed, energy, a will to keep moving to find her. I didn't need a light to spot her, she _was _the light. She was like a seraph, emblematically. Because when I was trapped, lost, chained to Easter, she took mercy even when I was cold and rude to her, and saved me. She brought me back to my own two feet. Mercy, the song I unknowingly wrote for Amu.

I jumped over a small secluded creek and flew past trees only to stop dead in my tracks. Pink. There was _pink_ in that creek. I propelled myself back in the direction I came. Why did I leave Yoru home again? Because I'm an idiot, that's why. Fucking super.

When I finally made it back to the creek, pink swirled around rocks and feathered around a perfect ivory heart face. She looked like a doll, lying there. She had taken off her shoulder bandages, and the rest of her clothes for that matter, not that I minded. Her skin color was altered to the color of the delicate powder blue veins beneath her skin. Not good.

I reached into the freezing water and scooped her out, using my black trench coat to warm her and sadly cover her.

I walked a short distance to a small clearing and set her down at the base of a large twisting dead tree.

"What's this?" I muttered out loud as I looked closer at the roots of the tree. There was some sort of space made naturally by the twists of the roots. In it a transparent object was being stored. I pulled free a long curved glass rod with smooth white horsehairs attached at the ends. A violin bow. Then the other thing must be… a violin. It was beautifully crafted, the curves were subtle and smooth, the strings taut and long. It was otherworldly.

I walked out to the middle of the clearing and played the violin version of Amu's song.

(Mercy- One Republic)

Angel of Mercy,

How did you find me?

Where did you read my story?

Pulled from the papers,

Desperate and hardened,

Seeking a moment every fix.

All I wanted to say,

All I wanted to do,

Is fall apart now.

All I wanted to feel,

I wanted to love,

It's all my fault now.

A tragedy I fear.

Angel of mercy,

How did you find me?

How did you pick me up again?

Angel of mercy,

How did you move me?

Why am I on my feet again?

And I see you,

Whoa, whoa, whoa

I feel you,

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Just before daylight,

Come and I stand by,

Waiting to catch the quickest plane.

Flying to nowhere,

Is better than somewhere.

That's where I've been and nothing's changed!

All I wanted to say,

All I wanted to do,

Is fall apart now.

All I wanted to feel,

I wanted to love,

It's all my fault now

A tragedy for sure.

Angel of mercy,

How did you find me?

How did you pick me up again?

Angel of mercy,

How did you move me?

Why am I on my feet again?

And I see you,

Whoa, whoa, whoa

I feel you,

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I'm so lost in you.

A tragedy seemed to be over now.

A tragedy, it seemed to be, over now!

Angel of mercy,

How did you find me?

How did you pick me up again?

Angel of mercy,

How did you move me?

Why am I on my feet again?

And I see you,

Whoa, whoa, whoa

I feel you,

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I feel you,

Oh, oh, oh…

"It's beautiful. What's it called?" A gentle, kind voice asked. I froze. It was the voice I'd returned to Japan to hear.

"Mercy." I breathed, looking over at her zipping up my jacket.

"Who is she?" She gave me a familiar halfhearted glare. I frowned.

"Who?"

"The girl you're in love with." She looked down, pink bangs shadowing her eyes.

I crossed the clearing and put the violin and bow back in their original spots, getting right up in her face to make eye contact.

"I love you, Amu." My eyes gazed into hers in amazement as they started to change. The cold color was warming to the point that my heart melted on contact. The depth returned and then some, becoming two sparkling oceans of honey. A delicate rose pink bloomed on her cheeks that I used to live for, and now I would live and die for. Her full pale pink lips pulled up at the corners into the most radiant sight ever, a genuine smile.

Amu was back, and I was never letting her go again.

She pulled me against the tree to sit with her, and touched my lips to hers. I know it's really cliché to say that sparks flew, so I won't, because fireworks blew, the world stopped revolving, good and evil ceased to exist, nothing mattered but Amu. Nobody mattered but Amu.

I laid down and pulled her on top of me, her legs on either side of my hip. I rubbed circles on her lower back with one hand, the other on her cheek bringing her in for another kiss.

"I love you too, Ikuto." My life was complete, in that sentence, it was all worthwhile. I could die happy right now.

I kissed her more passionately, my arms crossed on her lower back, pressing her to me. I unzipped my black trench coat and flung it from her body. I unhooked her strapless pale pink polka dotted bra and added to the pile we were making. Her cheeks once again warmed to that lovely shade of pale pink.

I leaned up and kissed each cheek, leaving a light trail of kisses down her neck until I reached the hollow of her collar bone. I experimentally traced the hollow with the tip of my tongue, making her shiver.

I smirked slightly, hiding it so not to upset her.

I sat up and she straddled my lap, kissing me lightly along the jaw line. I pulled my shirt over my head, letting her trace my abs with her index finger. I felt her hands undoing my black skinny jeans so I kicked them off into the pile. She pushed me onto the soft wet grass, sitting on _that area_. Amu very subtly rocked her hips forward, making me groan aloud.

Personally, I found it unfair that she got to tease and I was trying to be the good guy here. I flipped her over lightening fast, crashing my lips to hers. I very slowly inched her black polka dotted panties down her hips, my other hand ghosting over her womanhood. She gasped and moaned, pushing into my hand and rubbing herself against it vigorously.

_Now _I let myself smirk. She was too far in to glare; she just looked up at me, her wet pink locks plastered around her face. I was feeling pretty in control until she pulled off my boxers and flipped up over.

She traced a finger up my erection, blushing all the way. I let out a deep guttural groan and grabbed her hips, making her hover over me. She carried out the rest, slowly sliding onto me. She was almost all the way there when she cried out, blinking back tears.

"Are you okay?" I asked frantically. All the high school heath lessons that I actually _went_ to came back to me. This was _supposed _to hurt her. I swear, I'll kill god for that. I was about to pull out, but she shook her head and moved on top of me. We both moaned together as our bodies meshed into one.

There's nothing that quite describes the feeling. It was like… I was finally happy. Finally alive. When I was trapped in Easter, my soul had died. Now, I was back alive. And I had this Angel of Mercy with me, I was unstoppable.

We lay on the grass, watching the sun come up. Who knew cloud nine was behind the Hinamori's old house?

_NEWS HEADLINE_

_**Multi-million dollar corporation 'Origin' taken down**_

_ Shocking news came in today that Origin Conglomerate's infamous leader known only as 'Boss' was found brutally murdered at his summer home in Phoenix, Arizona. The murderer, even more shockingly, was reported a young girl around the age of thirteen. Witnesses report seeing a dark haired cat eared preteen jumping from the building. The girl has not been located, so be sure to lock your doors and… _


	12. Chapter 12: Remember Me

Amu pov

I'm not supposed to think like that.

I'm not supposed to think like that.

_I'm not supposed to fucking think like that!_

I wasn't supposed to, but when did I say I followed rules, even when set by myself?

And thus, I got very imaginative with their deaths. Gory things, most of them.

Take that professional looking woman in the back. No, no, further. Yeah, near the door. She, will be sent through the window of her _big important office building_, by a rolling tech cart, where she will ultimately reach death on the sidewalk at the tragic age of 29 on October 12th, 2016 at 3:48 pm.

The dangerously calm man in the corner I will allow live a bit longer-if he bothers me he'll die now-maybe… 53? Yes, I like 53. He'll freeze to death, I haven't gotten too inventive with his decease because he really hasn't said much to piss me off.

The woman in front of me, however, was the nosiest, conniving, _professional_ bitch I'd ever met. She would die _tomorrow_ if I got my way, but that will not be the case because for my idea to work, it needs time.

She will be fired from her job because her computer was hacked and files needed were deleted. The woman then, needing money to continue with her secret addiction to alcohol, steals and kills for money.

Thus, the mafia takes her in as a hit man. While on a very important mission, she will be shot in the side. Limping in terrible agony, the woman drags herself to an odd abandoned building that I think I'll make a church.

Yes, anyway, just as she crumples to the floor, she feels incredibly hot. Unnaturally hot. A scorching pain rushes through her, but not enemy is to be found and fought. Toxic gas crushes her lungs in its weight. Then, in her final suffering, she sees the blurred out shape of flames licking up the church walls. The pitiful woman's entire life flashes before her eyes, and gets stuck on one _itsy, bitsy little detail_.

Me. Tsukiyomi, Amu. The girl that was sent to burn in hell alive. The miserable figure slumped in her interrogation chair at a top secret police station for capital crimes and offenses.

Yes. This is me. This is me after facing the monsters in the closet of every child. The dead, the cold, the heartless. The broken, the old, the hated.

Wait.

Stop.

I am loved. I am beautiful. I have the most beautiful blush in the world. Consequently, I am the most fun to tease. Consequently, I love it. Consequently, I love _him_. These people can't kill the fire in us. We will live forever in our love.

I am an Abomination. I am _his_ Abomination.

Disgrace. _His_ Disgrace.

Outrage. _His_ Outrage.

All of them are different words with the same meaning. They are labels, harmless tags that he clipped for me. I embrace it. Laugh with the haters who could never understand love and turmoil. Scream with the misfits waiting to burst free.

You cannot do anything to me. Look down on me. Hurt me. Make me cry.

You cannot touch me, because you are the people that slap reality into innocent children before their time. You are the people who take babies from their parents because they lost their job. You are the people who accuse a six month pregnant sixteen year old of murder and throw her lover in jail for rape.

And you, can't stand it.

I did not do it. After Ikuto, I refuse to destroy unless for my growing family. I refuse to hate unless hated.

Can anybody else say that earnestly?

No. People lie, cheat, steal; it's human nature. It's how we live; who we are even. But have any of you, stopped to live? Not anybody I've met before Ikuto. We get in our high speed cars and flit through those roses we were supposed to smell.

I could kill people like that. Notice the 'could'. I don't need to repeat myself.

_NEWS HEADLINE_

_**Multi-million dollar corporation 'Origin' taken down**_

_Shocking news came in today that Origin Conglomerate's infamous leader known only as 'Boss' was found brutally murdered at his summer home in Phoenix, Arizona. The murderer, even more shockingly, was reported a young girl around the age of thirteen. Witnesses report seeing a dark haired cat eared preteen jumping from the building. The girl has not been located, so be sure to lock your doors and… _

Yes, this is just what it sounds like. A dark-haired girl. Not me. Arizona, where would I get money for a plane ticket? Cat ears. Chara change.

I thought for long hours if I knew of anyone who had a motive for this. Something caught my eye at this point. A glass violin crafted by the gods just peeping from a box in Ikuto's apartment.

Oni-chan. There was a time when my mind was a dark and treacherous place. All of the wires were screwed up and I saw things. Bloodcurdling things that I shall never speak of, and… a girl. Alice. Oni-chan. Evil. I will never know if she was real or not.

I voiced this to everyone. Ikuto thought it was worth investigating. The rest agreed, but Dia seemed hesitant.

Dia is gone. The rest of my charas say she's still around, they can feel her, but I'm not sure.

What really bothers me is what she said.

"The valley of stars makes everything possible. Even time travel." She vanished immediately.

Now that I'm pregnant, I know. How do you explain this to police? You don't.

You persevere.

You live on.

Because I am the girl who has been to hell and lived.

I am the one whom you hide your children from.

This is me. Tsukiyomi Amu.

**Remember me.**

I owe everyone an apology.

I've been very busy, and lazy when I'm not.

I hope you enjoyed the new chaper!


	13. Chapter 13: Orphanage Nightmare

Amu pov

$30,000 in bail for a rapist. Shit.

My day hadn't been peachy as it was, but now that I learned this little… _blockage_ it just highlights the fact that my life is absolute crap.

Ikuto was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a rapist. _Hell. No._

But because I was 15 and he was 19 when it happened, he was an adult and I was a child, legally. That mean _legally, _it didn't matter what I, the _victim_, said. This was also the worst way possible to find out I was pregnant; under adult control.

I was forced to stay in a fucking _orphanage!_ An obviously pregnant teen living with small children? Even if I wanted to be adopted, it would be impossible!

These crazy priggish couples came in smiling like everything was just fabulous- in their lives; it probably was- until they saw me. Their obnoxiously fake smile would turn to confusion at seeing a petite pinkette curled up in the corner, and then their eyes would lie upon my swollen stomach. The reactions to this were all different. Some, stomped away immediately. Others even insulted me; saying I was an irresponsible whore, blah, blah…

One woman, however strange and rare, looked at me and… and _smiled_. It was a warm smile that was not at all fake. She was a redheaded woman, very pretty, but underneath it all you could see the understanding. She _knew_ what it was like. She had, or so I guessed, gone through a similar situation.

The woman came back to see me- only me- as much as possible. At first, she didn't talk, because she knew I wasn't ready to.

On her fourth visit (in only two weeks, which made me very happy) a couple was visiting the orphanage to look at the _pickings._ This couple was especially judgmental. I knew this because they were currently discussing in hushed whispers which child they wanted.

"Dear, I think the little black child could be the one. I could tell the girls that I adopted him from Africa. They'll be so jealous! Besides, Anne just got that little Chinese girl; we have to be on top of this!"

"I liked the skinny little redheaded boy! We could say we saved him from starving to death!"

It made me sick to listen to anymore banter from the duo, but my ears had been made super sensitive due to careful eavesdropping at the insane asylum. Because of this, I had to endure hearing them verbally tear apart children for their own selfish benefits.

"What about the pink-haired girl?" I froze. No. Not another thing. Please, _please!_ I can't be ripped further from him! The wife gasped in horror.

"By god, David! Look at her stomach!" They weren't even being discreet anymore. They were blatantly staring at my midsection and it was making me uncomfortable.

"Yes, I know. Imagine that, Janet? Taking a pregnant teen to see your friends! It's two in one! Now _that's_ charity." I was so congealed with fear, I couldn't even register how hilarious it was that they sounded exactly like the rich snobs in a movie I'd seen. My heart skipped so many beats I seriously thought I was going to have a heart attack. I couldn't breathe.

The dark haired man and woman gracelessly shuffled to my usual spot in the corner. The husband opened his mouth to speak when another voice cut across his.

"Oh, there you are! We have to go if we want to be home at a decent hour, it's a long drive. Come on, we'll try another orphanage sometime."

I almost threw myself at the pretty red haired woman. I almost did a lot of things, including crying in relief and socking the couple in the face.

Once we got just about to the big glass front doors in the west wing, the nice woman turned to me and smiled pleasantly.

"Hi, I'm Mira Mikado. We haven't formally met, but I think I can help you out. Amu Hinamori, right?" Mira's voice never lost its warm feeling; a quality I liked. However, in my many consecutive unfortunate events, I had learned the art of cynicism.

"How can you help me?" No more words than needed, just as I liked it.

"I can get you an ultrasound." My eyebrows rose higher than I thought possible. I hadn't even thought of that, even though I already knew the gender because my offspring had decided to kill someone in my time period.

"Please."

"So, Amu, what grade are you in?" I know it's not a fantastic decision to get in a car with someone you barely now, but Mira was different, I could tell.

"I'm a junior."

"Uh! Eleventh is the hardest year." I nodded absently. _Hell yeah it's a hard year._

A few peaceful minutes passed in which I contemplated the situation.

"So… do you know this doctor? Or was it just sort of a Google miracle?" She laughed; it was a loud and pleasant sound that filled the entire car.

"It was originally what you could call a Yellow Pages miracle. But I've known her since I was 17 and I know that she is probably one of the most awesome people on the planet." _I've known her since I was 17. _That detail stuck out to me. 17. A mere teenager. Just like me.

"Yeah. I was just like you once."


End file.
